Chapter Text
The noise of the helicopter was deafening and Jack grit his teeth. It was a necessary evil if they wanted to reach the compound as quickly as possible. And boy, did he want to get there pronto. But it also took their element of surprise, filleted it, shredded it and fed it to the pigs. Everyone and their grandmother’s dog would know they were coming.
He tightened his grip on his assault rifle and refrained from checking his tac team for the sixth time. Everyone was ready, prepared and chomping at the bit to kick the Nachoman’s ass into next week. It’d help no one if Jack’s anxious worry made his team nervous. So, he kept his gaze firmly fixed on the building they were quickly approaching.
“Don’t be dead”, he whispered under his breath. “Just, please, hoss. Don’t be dead.”
The first shots cracked through the air, hardly audible under the racket of their helo. It was showtime. Through long and hard-earned experience Jack wrangled his paralysing fear into submission and let the trained operative take over.
The raid was a blur. They managed to take out the first hostiles before their bird had touched down. From there it was controlled chaos. A dizzying, but calculated chaos. The tac team was well trained. He would know, seeing as Jack oversaw the training himself as head of security and intel.
He trusted each man and woman at his back to do their job and do it well. It freed him up to forge his path ahead of the pack, keen eyes scanning every room and hallway he came across for a familiar blond head. All the while silently pleading that they weren’t too late. The knowledge that El Nada could have easily killed his partner outside the prison if that’d been his play was little comfort. Jack wouldn’t be able to relax until he had his kids back home bundled up on Mac’s couch and complaining about his mother henning.
Clearing the compound took too long, endless rooms and open spaces ratcheting up his nerves. Every shot could be the one that killed that brilliant, infuriating, stubborn little bomb nerd with the stupid name, if the cartel decided to cut its losses.
It wasn’t until he reached a larger open space that might pose as some kind of living room that he found what he was looking for. He also found a cartel goon. Pointing a hideously ostentatious gun at his tied up partner. Putting the bastard down was more reflex than conscious thought.
Quickly scanning the room for more threats, Jack clocked the knocked out stooges surrounding his kid and couldn’t help a slight grin. Trust Mac to take out several guys while tied down and surrounded.
“Hey man. Got your message.” He offered the kid an opening for their usual banter, suppressing the worried frown that wanted to take over. A delayed vague giggle, completely at odds with Mac’s usual iron-clad control, was all he got in response. When after another long second nothing more was forthcoming, Jack added a more pointed verbal nudge. “Might wanna brush up on your Morse code. Misspelled my name.” He expected some kind of protest, but no. Still nothing. Something was seriously wrong here.
He took in what he could see without letting down his guard. Bruises were painting the pale skin a viscous rainbow of colors, but no blood was visible. No obvious wound, bullet or otherwise. But the kid wasn’t tracking, hazy blue eyes drifting somewhere in Jack’s direction without ever locking in. Drugged then. Even from a step away, keeping his gun ready to down any goon stupid enough to try something, he could see that Mac was struggling with breathing. Jack clenched his teeth, using every ounce of trained self restraint to keep all potential hostiles in sight and not rush to his boy’s side. Then the shots in the background finally ceased, El Nino and his men had been captured.
“Hey boys!” He didn’t take his eyes off Mac, watching every stilted movement of his chest like a hawk. Behind him the measured footsteps of his tac team drew closer, at last freeing Jack to fully focus on his partner and leave the bagging an’ tagging to his crew.
“Jeez, what’d they been givin’ you?” Using the knife from his tac vest, he cut the duct tape securing the kid’s bruised wrists to the chair. With nothing holding the limbs up, they flopped limply down. Another point in Jack’s internal worry checklist.
“Mac?” He crouched down, trying to capture the blond’s half-lidded gaze. There were no track marks on his arms, but his lips were chapped and reddened, the skin around his mouth and nose visibly irritated. That with the knocked over tank further back painted one ugly picture.
“Mac!” He carefully cupped the kid’s neck. “Hey, kiddo, look at me. C’mon, lemme see them baby blues.”
Heavy lids fluttered and Jack felt the vice of worry tighten. He’d been with the kid long enough, seen far too many injuries and sickness. He knew what was about to happen.
“No, no, no. Mac! Up and at ‘em bud. No sleeping yet.” It was no use.
At least the kid was seated, so there wasn’t any chance for him to knock something loose on the way down.
“Medics just arrived outside. They’ll be here in a moment.” Jack flicked his gaze up at the figure appearing at the back of the chair to register the tac team lead Joseph.
“Good. That’s good.”
It was experience and training and habit all mixed up that directed his fingers to Mac’s pulse point. Just to check. To reassure himself. Mac had been awake a moment ago. Drugged to high heavens, sure, but El Naranja had wanted information from the kid. So whatever he’d been given was likely some kind of “truth serum” nonsense. They weren’t at the murdered in a frustrated rage stage yet.
Expecting to feel the reassuring thump-thump of his boy’s heartbeat, it took Jack two long blinks before his brain registered something wrong. Dread coiled in his gut, freezing him for a second, before training mercifully took over and he was hollering for the medics while gently, but urgently repositioning Mac on the ground.
Joseph dropped to his knees across from him, wide eyes and steady hands offering whatever help he could. But Jack was too focused on his fingers pressed to a slender neck. Not even the racket of the medical team rushing towards them could draw his attention away.
The reassuring beat he’d expected to feel at his kid’s throat was still there, but skipping and dropping more beats than a DJ in a nightclub.
Lou and Sven from the Phoenix med team dropped to their knees beside him, but it wasn’t until Sven’s hand gently, but decisively moved Jack’s fingers out of the way to Mac’s wrist that he actually came back online. Looking up he met the medic’s eyes. A frown clouded the weathered bearded face, then Sven patted him on the shoulder and focused on Joseph instead.
“What we got, Joe?”
Jack knew he should feel… something. Something other than relieved. Relieved that he could focus on his boy’s wildly irregular pulse. Relieved that he didn’t have to lock away the worry to be a functioning agent. Relieved that none of these men would ever hold his reaction against him.
Joseph’s report was to the point, voice steady and firm. “Mac was taken captive about 20 hours ago after breaking out of super max undercover. We tracked him to this compound, found him tied to the chair with duct tape round the wrists. Awake at first, but unresponsive. Lost consciousness quickly after we arrived.”
Sven’s partner Lou took over, leaning over Mac with the blond head reclined, a penlight in Lou’s long fingers helping him inspect the kid’s mouth and throat.
“Absolute arrhythmia, reddened perinasal and perioral skin, irritated tissue in mouth and throat.”
Jack and Sven both zeroed in on the last part, but it was the medic who asked sharply “Swelling?”
Lou considered carefully, before shaking his head. “Slight swelling, no stridor.”
The pair frowned at each other. Far too much experience with medical emergencies gave Jack a pretty good idea what they were silently debating. If the tissue in the throat started swelling, it might close off the airway faster than a tube could be shoved through. And with their only means of transport being a helicopter which, while fast, was also too loud to allow listening for slight changes in breathing, the most likely decision was…
“We’re intubating.” Sven met Jack’s pained gaze. “The risk of swelling shut on us is too high, we’re too far out. ‘Sides, his GCS is shit, no reliable protective reflexes to keep him from aspirating.” Meaning, Mac was too deeply unconscious and might asphyxiate on his own saliva or vomit.
Jack winced, but nodded sharply. He didn’t like it, hated it in fact, to see his partner breathing through a tube, but he understood the reasoning.
The medic’s got to work swiftly, every movement well-practiced.
“We have any idea what he was given?” Sven asked without looking up.
Jack looked to the remaining tac team members who were securing the scene.
“There’s a knocked over tank here, sir. Label says nitrous oxide.”
Lou swore under his breath, but his partner thankfully explained immediately.
“Laughing gas. Was a big deal in anaesthesia once, now it’s mostly used in industrial production. It’s also a widespread party drug.”
Jack vividly remembered Mac giggling when he’d come in.
“What’s it do?”
Sven unceremoniously sliced through the orange jumpsuit to gain access for the ECG leads. He frowned sharply at the colorful array of bruises littering the pale skin.
“In small doses it makes you high. In large doses it can cause hypoxia and cardiac problems.” The monitor shrieked its alarm in agreement and was silenced for the moment. The squiggly lines were all over the place, but Jack tried to focus on the professional calm of the medics and the fact that even wonky squiggles were a lot better than none.
“Nitrous oxide gas in a tank like that means it’s compressed. And that means it’s bloody cold. If they forced him to breathe the stuff straight from the tank it explains why his airways are messed up. Almost like frostbite.”
Jack’s fingers twitched where they still rested against the inside of Mac’s wrist. He wanted to march outside and make El Nabo pay. He wanted to bundle up Mac and Riley and Bozer for good measure and park them on Mac’s couch where he could keep them safe. But most of all he wanted Mac to be okay.
He could already feel the swirling guilt twisting his gut. If only he’d pulled the plug on this damn op. If he’d done his damn job.
“Ready to load and go. Dalton, you’re coming I assume?”
Jack pushed back the guilt. There’d be time later for him to examine each mistake made during this mess. For now he glared at Sven for even considering he might not go with them.
He stayed glued to Mac’s side, one hand at his wrist, through the thankfully uneventful medevac flight, the chaos of the vetted and forewarned emergency bay and the battery of tests and examinations. At some point Joseph had shown up and forced a switched on comm on him to get reamed out by Riley for not reporting back. The apologies and reassurances had taken long enough for Mac to be settled in a private room.
Jack slumped exhausted into the chair provided, one hand still firmly attached to his kid’s wrist, regardless of the monitor quietly beeping above the headboard. The beats were still irregular, but not quite as bad as it had been. The breathing tube would remain overnight, the doc had explained. If the swelling didn’t get worse, they’d remove it in the morning.
Left alone with his sleeping partner, all the recriminations returned.
“I’m sorry”, he whispered into the quiet room. “I’m so sorry, hoss. Shoulda called the op a bust right at the start. Hell, shoulda never agreed to it in the first place.”
He lowered his head, thumb softly stroking over limp fingers.
“I know you’re nappin’ and all, but…” He shot a glance at the sleeping face, trying hard to ignore the medical equipment. “Jus’ so you know, I’m not gonna let you outta my sight for a good long while, kiddo.”